the third type of memory
by bookstvnerdlove
Summary: Connected to 'crash' and 'truth or lie'. Things that Beth wishes she can tell Maggie, and things that she doesn't (contains some sexytimes).


**disclaimer: i own nothing.**

She catalogs her thoughts about and conversations with Daryl into three categories. Things she can tell Maggie, things she wants to tell Maggie but doesn't, and things that she wants to keep between Daryl and herself (and the universe at large, because the universe knows all).

The third category is her favorite. It is in the third category that she places the time they were lying on the ground in the woods off the new camp. It was just two days after their second kiss, and he pulled her aside to go hunting again. This time, though, he told her that they had to come back with some food, because they were the actual,_ official, _hunting group for the day. That was the first time that he slid his fingers under her shirt, tracing her bare skin, along the ticklish spot around her belly button, up up up to the hollow between her breasts. He traced his fingers so carefully, so slowly, along her skin and across the slopes of her breasts. But right when he was about to lift her shirt up and pull the cups of her bra down, they heard a twig snapping in the woods. And walker or camper, it didn't matter, their time that day was up.

(She knows it is dangerous, to stay outside the confines of the camp for too long. But when Daryl looks at her with those eyes, so intense and full of _longing, _she's helpless. She knows all they have are these few stolen moments before it is back to pretending like her heart is not full of him and this _pull_ that she constantly feels in his presence.)

The next time they go hunting alone together, she finds herself pinned up against a tree (again). This time he doesn't stop with a kiss. Her legs find their way wrapped around his hips, which are grinding into her with such an intense pressure that all logical thought completely escapes her mind and all she can do is concentrate on is the pressure that builds inside of her until it bursts. Though her legs feel boneless, she lets them drop to the ground as she reaches around him, her turn to slide her hands along his back, down down down, as she hopes to slip them under his pants and to drive him as wild as he drives her. Before she can, he grabs her wrist to stop her and says, "Not here. It's not safe on the outside for too long." Even though she knows he speaks the truth, she lets her disappointment show as she makes him promise to find a safer spot for them to continue, and _soon._

(It takes some time before he feels comfortable spending too many moments alone together, they can't be so obvious as to go hunting every day. She spends those days apart filing her memories away, into the other categories. Like her thoughts about their time apart from the group, when they found the funeral home and she got to play the piano again, just once more, and it made her think about the happiest memories of their childhood, back before the world went mad and darkness started pulling at her. She tells Maggie about how Daryl slept in the coffin while she played, and Maggie laughs at the morbidity of it all. Even though Beth knows that there was more to it than that, she wants to tell Maggie that that was the moment she knew that she really felt _something_ for him, that memory belongs in category two and Maggie isn't ready for that yet.)

One day he finds a place for them, close to the edges of the camp, out of sight of the others, but still more protected than their hunting zone. It's there that he finally lets her slide his vest down his arms, his shirt up his chest, and to run her fingers along his muscles hardened by this new world. She likes the way he shivers when she grazes his abdomen, anticipating exactly where she plans to go next. When she slides his pants down, just enough to explore further, but high enough that they can be ready to fight if needed, he groans and closes his eyes, head back and throat exposed. His hands tangle in her hair as she tastes him, his hips thrusting rapidly, roughly, until he freezes and she feels triumphant. She revels in this power she has, the power to make him forget for just a little while, that they don't know what will come next except the guarantee of more violence.

When he turns the tables on her, flipping her onto her back, he does things with his teeth and his tongue that she's never experienced before. During, he whispers, "I'm sorry I couldn't find a condom this time," his breath hot against her, but she doesn't care because then his mouth is on her and his tongue is circling, around and around and around until she explodes, her insides fluttering around his fingers. After they adjust their clothes, they lie on the ground, motionless, facing each other for what feels like hours. And he shares stories with her, the good and the bad, just like when they played 'I never' with the moonshine and burned the house to the ground. She just smiles, because good or bad, she knows she loves all the parts of this man.

(One day, while they eat lunch together, Maggie asks her how the hunting trips are going. She knows that Maggie worries about her when she doesn't talk enough, it reminds her too much of a time gone by, when the weight of everything was too much and she felt too quiet and too small to survive in this new world. She loves her sister, so she tells her that she is becoming very accurate with a crossbow, and that she likes it.)


End file.
